"And how do you feel now?" said he, setting up the chair beside the blanket, but still standing as he surveyed the prostrate man, with dark eyes drawn together in the shade of a great straw sombrero.
"Fine!" replied Vanheimert, huskily. "But where am I, and who are you chaps? Rabbiters?"
As he spoke, however, he searched for the inevitable strings of rabbit skins festooned about the tents, and found them not.
"If you like," replied the other, frowning a little at the immediate curiosity of the rescued man.
"I don't like," said Vanheimert, staring unabashed. "I'm a rabbiter myself, and know too much. It ain't no game for abandoned stations, and you don't go playin' it in top-boots and spurs. Where's your skins and where's your squatter to pay for 'em? Plucky rabbiters, you two!"
And he gazed across the open toward the further tent, which had just disgorged a long body and a black beard not wholly unfamiliar to Vanheimert. The dark man was a shade darker as he followed the look and read its partial recognition; but a grim light came with quick resolve, and it was with sardonic deliberation that an eye-glass was screwed into one dark eye.
"Then what should you say that we are?"
"How do I know?" cried Vanheimert, turning pale; for he had been one of the audience at Mrs. Clarkson's concert in Gulland's store, and in consecutive moments he had recognized first Howie and now Stingaree.
"You know well enough!"
And the terrible eye-glass covered him like a pistol.